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Are Australian prisons meeting the needs of Indigenous offenders?
BACKGROUND: The over-representation of Indigenous Australians in custody is well documented, yet little is known about whether the health and social needs of Indigenous prisoners are met in correctional facilities. This study sought to identify common areas of need in a representative sample of Indi...
Autores principales: | , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Springer Berlin Heidelberg
2016
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5151790/ http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40352-016-0045-7 |
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author | Shepherd, Stephane M. Ogloff, James R. P. Thomas, Stuart D. M. |
author_facet | Shepherd, Stephane M. Ogloff, James R. P. Thomas, Stuart D. M. |
author_sort | Shepherd, Stephane M. |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: The over-representation of Indigenous Australians in custody is well documented, yet little is known about whether the health and social needs of Indigenous prisoners are met in correctional facilities. This study sought to identify common areas of need in a representative sample of Indigenous people in custody, and consider how well prison services were addressing these issues. METHODS: The sample comprised 122 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in custody in Victoria. Participants were administered the Camberwell Assessment of Need Forensic-Short Version to ascertain the presence or absence of needs in custody. Statistical analyses to determine associations with re-offence were conducted. RESULTS: Findings indicated that prisons were able to meet the non-criminogenic needs of many offenders; however there was a limited capacity to address specific criminogenic needs. Psychological distress, substance abuse, poor treatment adherence and threatening behaviours were considered ongoing needs regardless of supports/interventions being provided. Moreover, these four unaddressed needs were all associated with future recidivism. CONCLUSIONS: Effective prison treatment services focusing on these four areas of need are urgently required. Such initiatives require continuation post-release combined with additional assistance to uphold basic non-criminogenic needs acquired in prison. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-5151790 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2016 |
publisher | Springer Berlin Heidelberg |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-51517902016-12-27 Are Australian prisons meeting the needs of Indigenous offenders? Shepherd, Stephane M. Ogloff, James R. P. Thomas, Stuart D. M. Health Justice Research Article BACKGROUND: The over-representation of Indigenous Australians in custody is well documented, yet little is known about whether the health and social needs of Indigenous prisoners are met in correctional facilities. This study sought to identify common areas of need in a representative sample of Indigenous people in custody, and consider how well prison services were addressing these issues. METHODS: The sample comprised 122 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in custody in Victoria. Participants were administered the Camberwell Assessment of Need Forensic-Short Version to ascertain the presence or absence of needs in custody. Statistical analyses to determine associations with re-offence were conducted. RESULTS: Findings indicated that prisons were able to meet the non-criminogenic needs of many offenders; however there was a limited capacity to address specific criminogenic needs. Psychological distress, substance abuse, poor treatment adherence and threatening behaviours were considered ongoing needs regardless of supports/interventions being provided. Moreover, these four unaddressed needs were all associated with future recidivism. CONCLUSIONS: Effective prison treatment services focusing on these four areas of need are urgently required. Such initiatives require continuation post-release combined with additional assistance to uphold basic non-criminogenic needs acquired in prison. Springer Berlin Heidelberg 2016-12-06 /pmc/articles/PMC5151790/ http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40352-016-0045-7 Text en © The Author(s). 2016 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Shepherd, Stephane M. Ogloff, James R. P. Thomas, Stuart D. M. Are Australian prisons meeting the needs of Indigenous offenders? |
title | Are Australian prisons meeting the needs of Indigenous offenders? |
title_full | Are Australian prisons meeting the needs of Indigenous offenders? |
title_fullStr | Are Australian prisons meeting the needs of Indigenous offenders? |
title_full_unstemmed | Are Australian prisons meeting the needs of Indigenous offenders? |
title_short | Are Australian prisons meeting the needs of Indigenous offenders? |
title_sort | are australian prisons meeting the needs of indigenous offenders? |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5151790/ http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40352-016-0045-7 |
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